Early Season Replay Controversy

Baseball umpiring is a very difficult job.  It's much harder than it seems.  That's the biggest thing I learned during my first year as an ump, when I blew my share of calls!  And, unlike professional umpires, I didn't have instant replay to help me out!

As you can probably imagine, I'm strongly in favor of instant replay in baseball.  If there's a call on the field that the replay clearly shows is wrong, they should be able to correct it.  After all, that's the whole point of replay.  Getting the call right.  (Trust me, I've gotten plenty of calls wrong and would've loved to have replay to correct them.) 

What happens then when they go to replay and still get the call wrong?  The only hope then is that it doesn't affect the game.  Yet that's exactly what we've seen twice already this year...in the same division...in a season that isn't even two weeks old!

The first game, of course, was the Mets-Marlins game at Citi Field on Thursday.  The Mets' Michael Conforto was hit by a pitch with the bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth, allowing the winning run to score.  The replay clearly showed that he leaned into the pitch, and Rule 6.08(b) of the Official Baseball Rules states that the batter shall not be awarded first base when he "makes no attempt to avoid being touched by the ball." 

Ignoring the fact that Conforto clearly leaned into it, the pitch was over the plate and should've been strike three.  The other part of Rule 6.08(b) says that if the pitch is a strike, it doesn't matter if the batter gets hit.  In that case, the strike supersedes the hit by pitch.  Home plate umpire Run Kulpa was ready to punch Conforto out before saying the ball hit him and changing his call.  To his credit, Kulpa owned up to his mistake after the game and admitted he should've called him out.

Then there was Alec Bohm's winning run in the nationally-televised Phillies-Braves game on Sunday night.  This one was a bang-bang play at the plate, so I can see why Lance Barrett called him safe on the field.  Watching the play in real-time from Barrett's angle, Bohm did look safe.  But on the replay, it appeared that his foot never actually touched the plate.  Yet, after reviewing the play for several minutes and looking at it from several different angles, the call stood and the Phillies won, prompting an embarrassing display by Braves fans, who showed their disapproval by throwing garbage on the field.

It's worth noting that the umpires on the field only make the initial call.  All reviews are handled by the MLB Replay Center in New York, where another umpire watches the video and determines whether it should be overturned or upheld.  When the umpires at the game go to the headsets, they're just communicating with the Replay Center.  They're not actually making the decision themselves.

Although, it's also worth noting how few calls actually get overturned by the Replay Center.  It really is remarkable how often managers come out to challenge, only for the call to be upheld.  Which just shows how good MLB umpires are.  They're the best in the business, and they show you why every time they get one of these bang-bang plays right, which is more often than not.

Of course, we only hear about it when they get it wrong.  No one talks about it when they get the call right, except to break down why they got it right.  There was no controversy about Cody Bellinger's home run on Opening Day being turned into an RBI single after he passed Justin Turner on the bases (which I maintain was 100 percent Turner's fault).  Because they got it right!

Part of the problem with replay may be that only certain things are reviewable.  On the Conforto play, for instance, the only thing they could review was whether or not he got hit (which he clearly did).  Even though it was obvious on the replay that he stuck his elbow out, that part of the play wasn't subject to review.  Why not?  Once it goes to New York, every element of the play should be subject to review.

I'm not saying that anything and everything should be reviewable.  In fact, there are some things that are reviewable that I wish weren't.  Like stolen bases.  Since replay's been introduced, how many times have we seen a successful stolen base overturned because the guy's hand came off the base for a split second and the infielder kept the glove on his back.  Sorry, but that's not what replay's for!  If you can only tell by using the super slow-mo and zooming in, that's not clear and obvious!

Likewise, balls and strikes are judgment calls.  That's the reason managers aren't allowed to argue them, and that's also the reason why they shouldn't be subject to review.  Same thing with check swings.  Check swings are entirely subjective, so there's nothing about them that you'd be able to change even if they were subject to review.

Overall, the addition of instant replay has been a wonderful thing for Major League Baseball.  The whole point is to get it right, and replay does just that.  It helps umpires correct obvious mistakes.  But when "obvious" mistakes aren't corrected even after the use of replay, it understandably leads to controversy.  It even leads some people to wonder "what's the point of using replay at all?"

That's really the issue here.  It's not a unique problem to baseball, either.  How many times have there been questionable replay reviews in football or basketball?  The controversies are more the result of those replay decisions than the original calls themselves.  Especially when they cost somebody the game!